Review: Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen

For five centuries, a witch’s
curse has bound the trolls to their city beneath the ruins of Forsaken
Mountain. Time enough for their dark and nefarious magic to fade from human
memory and into myth. But a prophesy has been spoken of a union with the power
to set the trolls free, and when Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and taken
beneath the mountain, she learns there is far more to the myth of the trolls
than she could have imagined.

Cécile has only one thing on her
mind after she is brought to Trollus: escape. Only the trolls are clever, fast,
and inhumanly strong. She will have to bide her time, wait for the perfect
opportunity.

But something unexpected happens
while she’s waiting – she begins to fall for the enigmatic troll prince to whom
she has been bonded and married. She begins to make friends. And she begins to
see that she may be the only hope for the half-bloods – part troll, part human
creatures who are slaves to the full-blooded trolls. There is a rebellion
brewing. And her prince, Tristan, the future king, is its secret leader.

As Cécile becomes involved in the
intricate political games of Trollus, she becomes more than a farmer’s
daughter. She becomes a princess, the hope of a people, and a witch with magic
powerful enough to change Trollus forever.

My Review

Stolen
Songbird is definitely a fun, entertaining
read. I wanted to know what was happening/was going to happen/what had happened
throughout the entire book. However, when I first read the description, I
really thought it would be a darker read than it was. And oddly enough, that’s
what I was hoping for. Sadly, it was more of a lighter fairytale story than a
dark, nitty-gritty adventure.

Since I was hoping for something along the lines of a Daenerys
Targaryen plotline, I had a little bit of a tough time getting into this. Cécile
is a good character. She’s not afraid to act, and she’s definitely brave, but
sometimes her emotions got a little wishy-washy. I wasn’t sure why she changed
her mind so fast on some issues, and how she could feel so strongly on certain
things during some parts of the story. The same was true of Tristan. While I really enjoyed his character, his
emotions did tend to baffle me. Maybe it was the fact that their love connection
was forced and they weren’t able to actually grow to like each other like a
normal couple?

The plot of the book is fun. There are so many twists and
turns that are really hard to guess. In the first half of the book, I thought I
knew what the ending was going to look like. I was wrong. And I’m really happy
about that, because no one wants to know how a book is going to end, it ruins
the magic.

Speaking of magic, I did love that aspect of the troll
world. In fact, the entire troll community was amazing to read about, I kind of
wish there had been more of that world-building weaved into the story. Some of
the secondary characters got their own backgrounds to expand on Trollus, but
even that wasn’t enough for me to really ingratiate myself into the area as
much as I would have liked.

All in all, it was a good read. If I hadn’t gone into it
thinking that I was going to read something else, I probably would have enjoyed
it ten times more. So if you want an adventurous, fairtytale-esque story, then Stolen Songbird could be what you’re
looking for.

*Note: I received a copy of this book to review via Netgalley. This in no way altered my
opinion/review.

2 comments:

I've got this book on my shelf, just patiently waiting for me to read it. (A case of 'other books first'.) Anyway, I really appreciate this review - and at least now I'll have a bit better of an idea what the story's like. It sounds more light and fluffy than I expected, so that is certainly good to know.

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